Nikita Mazepin’s rookie Formula 1 season couldn’t have been much worse. Even before it started, he had embarrassed himself with his behavior in a video posted on social media and escaped a meaningful sanction. Then he crashed in the third corner of his debut Grand Prix in Bahrain at the beginning of a season in which he was easily surpassed by team-mate Mick Schumacher.
He was most noticeable in 2021 when he announced alleged preferential treatment from Mick Schumacher or complained about his chassis fights. That certainly attracted far more attention than his inconspicuous performances.
But a 22-race season (or 21 in Mazepin’s case when he tested positive for COVID-19 and skipped the Abu Dhabi GP) in a back-of-the-grid car is a test for anyone. He cites his bad 2019 Formula 2 season, where he struggled and complained that ART Grand Prix was too one-dimensional in terms of setup and focused on his teammate (and title winner) Nyck de Vries as the key to give him the experience and strength to stick with it.
That was also a year that did not go well, as the bottom reached the first lap of the sprint race in Sochi. There he accepted the runoff in turn 2 on the first lap, but since he did not take the marked outlet chicane correctly, he contacted Jack Aitken and shot himself across the track into the wall, taking Nobuharu Matsushita with him.
Both Nobuharu Matsushita and Nikita Mazepin are hospitalized. As a result of the lap 1 incident, none of the drivers suffered breaks pic.twitter.com/H7ZXfW3JeE
– Formula 2 (@ Formula2) September 29, 2019
Mazepin specifically points to the aftermath as a difficult period that helped strengthen him for a season of struggle in 2021.
“There is definitely an opportunity to improve, and a lot,” Mazepin said of The Race. “This is the best level I’ve ever had a chance at and I’m lucky that 2019 was a very difficult time for me.
“I was really in a dark place mentally, especially at the end of the season between Sochi and Abu Dhabi when I was driving in F2. But if not [for that experience] I don’t think that after what I’ve been through this year, I would probably have gone on. “
Two years later, 2021 was a season that started badly, and while it improved a bit, it never reached an adequate level in terms of Mazepin’s driving style, even considering the uncompetitive machine. In the driver ratings of The Race he achieved an average of three out of 10 points.
We KNOW how happy you are to all of you to agree to our driver ratings over the course of a season.
So let’s go, again in 2021. Driver ratings from every single race this year, all added and animated by @ f1visualized. You’re welcome. pic.twitter.com/lOMYEvPXOB
– The Race (@wearetherace) December 15, 2021
There were indications of improvement that never fully bore fruit, moments when a positive trend flashed and then faded. That was not only in the two outstanding moments in the races – his passes to Schumacher at Silverstone and Interlagos – but also at subliminal speed.
But overall the impression he made at the beginning of the season with his crash in Bahrain, the chaotic weekend in Imola and several – albeit not entirely justified – penalties, especially because of the hindrance in Spanish qualifying due to the queues for slower cars negative.
“The first part of the year was tough because I got some penalties where I didn’t do anything,” said Mazepin. “I would say Bahrain and three laps after it was a very difficult part of my life, but with everything I’ve done in difficult times, I could get up and keep moving and get off the track and still have a smile on mine Face.
“And it was a real one, which is a great achievement because that wasn’t always possible in my life and I’ve been in some very dark places deep inside like 2019 where you do very well in F3 and then move in F2 and then the first year it sucks. So I was kind of prepared for it.
“You can’t really prepare for it by reading about it or having someone tell you, but the point is for you to experience it and we’ve been down and rested a few times this year and down a few times and I am every time proud that we got it high.
“I’m also very lucky that everyone, including my mechanics and engineers, wants to do well and I can only imagine how hard it works through the night when the freight is late [in Brazil].
“To know that it’s best to be in 19th place and then do it, not for 10 races, not for 20, but for 22, and nobody gave up. So I never had the choice to do this. “
While Mazepin didn’t set the world on fire during his junior career, he wasn’t a beacon of hope. He was supported by first-class machines and many private tests, but despite this, with four wins in Formula 3 and fifth with two wins in Formula 2 – both in the main races – he still has a certain level of ability in his first seasons were bad.
On top of that, he’s also had many F1 miles dating back to 2016 when he first tested for Force India. This meant that he had 12 “official” days of testing under his belt before the first race of the season, as well as a considerable number of days with Mercedes in private use, which Toto Wolff described as an “extensive test program”.
But tell Mazepin that given his preparation and solid, if unspectacular form in the junior categories, his first season was disappointing and he disagrees.
“I’m certainly not disappointed,” he tells The Race. “I’ve probably driven good, balanced cars, and for most of my life I’ve driven something that is very close to a good, balanced car. That’s how my driving style evolved, and it’s not surprising that most of the time this car is not very balanced.
“So I’m not that good at driving bad cars and I was aware of that. If you look at the Barcelona test with Mercedes in 2019, I was a little more than two tenths slower than Valtteri [Bottas]. If you drive a car that gives you the confidence you need, I can be there right away.
“My job is to find out why I can’t be there and to get the most out of every single car because that’s what they say [Fernando] Alonso is the master of. You can give him a lawnmower and he would be the fastest driver in this possible vehicle and that is unfortunately my weakest point. But I can only believe and hope that I am 22 years old and will try even more to improve it. “
It may be unusual for Mazepin to directly address or even admit a significant weakness. For much of his season he’s found ways to explain his struggles, and it has often been shown that he’s more interested in excuses than progress.
But there were other signs of the self-confidence needed to improve, for example in Interlagos, where Schumacher threatened the pace in qualifying – maybe even surpassing him before his final qualifying lap got away with him, he said on the radio, “Why am I trying it’s so damn hard when I don’t have to? ”. That’s the kind of mindset that allows him to improve.
A big problem for Mazepin in 2021 was confidence in the stern on the high-speed turns. He’s strapped to it as the season progressed and switching to a brand new chassis after the August shutdown seemed to help, having struggled first with one that didn’t give him confidence and then with one that was overweight, with several Weekends when his underlying pace was on seemed stronger, even though he didn’t do qualifying as well as he should.
“My honest feeling is that I don’t have the feeling that the car is under me,” says Mazepin. “One of my strengths is assessing where the balance is, where the limit is, and not going over it, because if you look across the garage, I don’t think I cost the team almost twice as much what other people have [in crash damage].
“That may sound strange. I can spin, but there’s always a reason this spin never results in a violent fall – or very rarely. I had a big one in Bahrain and then I finished it because there is a lot of pressure in this sport and the easiest thing to do is brake less or lift less. It’s something we’ve learned since we were five.
“But the problem is that you a) cost the team money and b) you don’t know the car won’t stop, so you have to drive with your own head on your shoulders. In the high-speed corners, that’s the limit of downforce and balance you have.
“I firmly believe in working closely with the engineer and fine-tuning the cars, because the times when we had this great balance were great. Unfortunately, we often didn’t succeed, but since people always compare me to my teammate, in my opinion it wasn’t always a fair comparison, because if your car is heavier, you need more downforce to carry the same speed in corners, when the car has more weight. It’s just physics.
“I really, really wanted to nail Formula 1 down from the first year because that was my weakness in other series. But it didn’t happen and I have full confidence in the future. “
Although the signs of progress were difficult to see, its reputation for continual loss has been exaggerated. Yes, there have been a number of spins, but he’s right when he says that Schumacher was the Haas rider who had more costly falls – so he missed qualifying twice. It’s also worth noting that the Mazepin crash in Saudi Arabia was due to the circumstances and was exactly the type of accident everyone was expecting.
The big problem for Mazepin is that its pace was poor and while it showed signs of improvement, it was not produced at the crucial moments. Since Haas should at least become more competitive in 2022 and has every chance of at least being in the middle of the field, he has to take a clear and decisive step forward in terms of speed. And to do this, he has to make sure that his focus is actually on self-improvement, not on making excuses.
As Schumacher showed by his side, it was still possible for a rookie to make a good impression on Haas’ machine park in 2021. What will decide whether Mazepin gets to an improved level this year will lie in its own approach as that is the key for any rider looking to perform at this level with limited track time and relentless pressure. But there was at least enough insight into an upward trend in 2021 to expect an improved second season from Mazepin.
